The present disclosure relates generally to computing devices. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to an apparatus and a method for controlling Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connections in a wireless communication system.
In recent wireless communication environments, electronic devices (or client devices), such as smart phones, run several network applications (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Email, Flipboard, AccuWeather) by interacting with independent and remote servers. Most of these applications interact with the servers by establishing transmission protocol connections which are short-lived in nature, for example, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connections.
When a client device does not adequately close the TCP connections, the client device can cause considerable power consumption. In this regard, there are typical methods for initiating TCP connection closure at the client or the server.
A conventional client-initiated close method for use with TCP connections immediately closes a corresponding inactive TCP connection when data exchange is finished. However, the conventional method also closes the inactive TCP connection to be reused. For the TCP connection reuse, transport layer setup is required, which takes time.
By contrast, in a server-initiated close method for use with TCP connections, a server initiates a TCP connection close by sending Finish (FIN) packets to clients after a server timeout, which may last from several seconds to several minutes (e.g., 30 s, 60 s, 120 s, and the like).
Such the TCP connections with short life generally have a characteristic of data transfer with a limited frequency between a client and server end points. Once data is exchanged, the remaining time of an established TCP connections is idle. An established yet idle TCP connection is vulnerable to the server timeout causing a close message (e.g., FIN packets) with intervals ranging from seconds to minutes.
Thus, in a wireless communication network (e.g., 3rd Generation (3G)/LTE), server-initiated close messages result in energy overhead caused by network radio state transition from an idle state to an active state in addition to tail energy consumed by the wireless communication network. In some cases, delayed close messages keep a radio interface as the active state on for a longer time by resetting a radio-layer timer, and even trigger an additional radio state transition by turning on the radio interface thereby causing energy overhead.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.